Lorna Elizabeth Lockwood (March 24, 1903 – September 23, 1977) was a Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. She was the first female chief justice of a state Supreme Court in the United States. In the 1960s she was almost nominated by President Lyndon Johnson to be the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court. Instead, Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to serve on the high court.
Lorna Lockwood was born on March 24, 1903, in Douglas, Arizona Territory, to Daisy Maude Lincoln and Alfred Collins Lockwood. Her father was an attorney and later Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. In 1913, the family moved to Tombstone and Lorna graduated from Tombstone High School in 1920. In 1923, she received her B.A. from the University of Arizona in Tucson and in 1925, her J.D. from the University of Arizona College of Law. The only woman in her class, she was elected President of the Student Bar Association.
Lockwood passed the Arizona State Bar and worked as a legal stenographer from 1925 until 1939. She established the private practice Lockwood & Savage with Loretta Savage. Lockwood was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 1939. In 1942, she served as secretary to Congressman John R. Murdock and in 1943 she became District Price Attorney of the Office of Price Administration. Lockwood was re-elected to the Arizona House in 1947 and became the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. She was appointed Arizona′s Assistant Attorney General in 1948. She was the first woman to hold that position and served there until 1951.
Lockwood become a judge for the Arizona Superior Court in Maricopa County in 1951, becoming the first woman to sit on the bench in that court. She stayed with that court until 1960 and in 1961 became a Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. She served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1965 to 1966 and again from 1970 to 1971. She was the first woman to become chief justice of a state′s Supreme Court.
Lockwood died on September 23, 1977, at the age of 74, from complications with pneumonia. It would not be until 1981 that a woman would serve on the nation′s highest court: Sandra Day O'Connor, appointed by President Ronald Reagan.
Famous quotes containing the word lockwood:
“You are, or you are not the President of The National University Law School. If you are its President I wish to say to you that I have been passed through the curriculum of study of that school, and am entitled to, and demand my Diploma. If you are not its President then I ask you to take your name from its papers, and not hold out to the world to be what you are not.”
—Belva Lockwood (1830–1917)